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Star Trek Online to Launch First Expansion in May with Playable Romulan Faction

A mysterious countdown timer on the free-to-play Star Trek Online game ended today with a quantum torpedo to the pleasure center of geek’s brains everywhere. On May 21st the three-year old MMO will receive its first expansion: Legacy of Romulus.

This update brings your favorite snooty, big browed baddies to the character select screen as the Romulans and Remans become the game’s third faction to battle against and along side the Federation and Klingons. Denise Crosby (TNG’s Tasha Yar) will return as the voice of Empress Sela to bark orders as you take command of some of the sexiest starships known to Trekkers. Other announced features include a Tholian reputation system for your end-game grinding pleasure (although it boggles the mind as to how you’d gain the favor of the xenophobic bug dudes) and a revamped UI that will, hopefully, tame STO’s rather schizophrenic interface.

Star Trek Online has done a fantastic job continuing the legacy of Roddenberry's original universe in the face of the recent franchise reboot. STO takes place in the ‘prime’ Star Trek universe and picks up after the adventures of your favorite crews from The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Additionally, STO features many features not seen in other MMOs such as space ship combat resembling the classic Star Fleet Command and allowing players to customize and field their own AI bridge crew adventuring parties, much like the RPGs of yore. Furthermore, you’ll amass an army of junior officers and delegate tasks across the universe to accrue resources and handle mission too mundane for you to bother with in the surprisingly deep Duty Officer system. Add in a free-to-play model that lets players earn premium currency and you have a can’t miss experience that has kept the entire GUO staff coming back time and again. Heck, I only signed up to cover the free-to-play launch for GUO but fell in love once again with a franchise I had long since grown bored with. Star Trek Online has since become our cross-country family game night favorite.

In other, more important, STO news, I GOT MY BUG SHIP!

Interested? Check out StarTrekOnline.com. Or hit some of the links below for a taste of our previous coverage of Star Trek Online.